Most reliable brand of motherboards ?

[Chiropteran]

Asus "feels" reliable to me.

 

[prtuc2]

Another vote for Intel board, those boards might not have the best features but very reliable.

 

[GnatGoSplat]

In the past few, I've used Intel, Foxconn, PC Chips, ECS, Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, and Jetway. They were all fairly recent boards, AM2 and LGA775 generation or newer.
The PC Chips AM2 board lasted a few years, till the capacitors swelled, but they replaced it free out of warranty. 2 of the Gigabyte boards (both AM2+) arrived with severe and reproducible stability issues, they were Newegg Open Box, so not that big of a surprise. Getting them replaced under warranty was a huge hassle, because first time for both boards, they were returned with "no problems found". I had to write very detailed instructions, send photos, and link to videos, in order to FINALLY get their technicians up to speed on how to reproduce the problem. Both boards were eventually finally returned to me properly repaired and working perfectly for years. I feel like that's pretty typical for Newegg Open Box - you are buying someone else's problem. Anytime I've paid full price to buy a Gigabyte board brand new, it never had any problems.

Overall, I prefer Asus and Gigabyte. Just from quality of the NB/SB heatsinks, hardware design, capacitors, and BIOS especially, I tend to prefer Gigabyte. Also the fact that there are much fewer of them being returned to Newegg than Asus, MSI, or Asrock makes me feel like there must be fewer duds out of the factory.

 

[stevech]

The difference between retailers that say:
Open Box

and one that says
Refurbished to manufacturer's specifications

is?

shrink-wrap?

 

[GnatGoSplat]

Not sure about other retailers, but I know Newegg Open Box are simply customer returns. Maybe the customer just changed their mind and the motherboard is fine, or maybe something is wrong with it.

Refurbished usually went back to the manufacturer and they tested and repaired the item, then returned back to the retailer. It's more likely a refurbished item won't have any problems, but in my experience, some manufacturer's tests aren't very thorough so a refurbished board could still have issues.

 

[mindless1]

Not sure about other retailers, but I know Newegg Open Box are simply customer returns. Maybe the customer just changed their mind and the motherboard is fine, or maybe something is wrong with it.

Refurbished usually went back to the manufacturer and they tested and repaired the item, then returned back to the retailer. It's more likely a refurbished item won't have any problems, but in my experience, some manufacturer's tests aren't very thorough so a refurbished board could still have issues.

Not all of 'eggs Open Box are customer returns. Some appear to be either factory overruns/surplus/OEM stock, or RMA repaired - ESPECIALLY ASUS when they come in a plain white box. Some of them I've even been able to see soldering repair work done that 'egg wouldn't have done themselves. Unfortunately 'egg doesn't list these whitebox refurbs separately as there is seldom any accessories in the box like the case rear I/O plate, just the bare board. When buying an Asus refurb I just assume it's a whitebox/bare-board and am pleased when it's not.

A few years back there were a lot of board brands I'd avoid because of lower quality electrolytic capacitors that I expected to fail prematurely. Today it's still true to some extent, I won't buy any brand /model that uses non-solid capacitors in the power regulation circuitry, but for the right price... I'd buy many including MSI, Asrock, Foxconn, Intel (Foxconn makes Intel boards now while Asus used to years ago), but I too favor Asus or Gigabyte for reliability BUT it depends a lot on the scenario, even with a budget oriented model, running a board spec'd as capable of only 65W to 95W TDP CPUs, with a 65W CPU, is harder on it than running a board capable of 140W TDP CPU with a 95W CPU.

On a side note I don't buy top end board models, I've never found premium priced boards to be worth the money and usually spend about $70 to $130 depending on the system's purpose, or a bit less if it's something on sale or rebated.

 

[GnatGoSplat]

Not all of 'eggs Open Box are customer returns. Some appear to be either factory overruns/surplus/OEM stock, or RMA repaired - ESPECIALLY ASUS when they come in a plain white box. Some of them I've even been able to see soldering repair work done that 'egg wouldn't have done themselves. Unfortunately 'egg doesn't list these whitebox refurbs separately as there is seldom any accessories in the box like the case rear I/O plate, just the bare board. When buying an Asus refurb I just assume it's a whitebox/bare-board and am pleased when it's not.

I see. A few years ago, Newegg used to list them all as "Refurbished" and now they have 2 categories, "Open Box" and "Recertified". Since they have those 2 categories now, I just guessed Open Box meant customer returns and Recertified were the ones that actually made a trip back to the manufacturer. Nice to know that's not the case, but unfortunately, you can't know ahead of time which are truly refurbished and which are someone else's problem. I know the white box refurbs had definitely gone back to Asus... those were always the ones I had no problems with. The Gigabyte boards I bought did come in box with all accessories and unfortunately also came with problems, so I knew they were customer returns. I remember one box even had a dried bloody smear on it, as though somebody cut their hand on a cheap case or something.

I agree, I also won't buy a board with non-solid capacitors in the power regulation circuitry after my experience with PC Chips and bad caps. Fortunately, most boards use the solid caps now, even the cheap brands. I usually buy cheaper boards too, because I don't need SLI and the cheaper ones have all the features I'll use.